Louis, if you're look to do Auto CAD, I don't know anything about it? If you want to draw knives and render them to look realistic, I think I can help?
Here's what I do.
I start out by drawing the knife with pencil and paper, and then scan it into Adobe PhotoDeluxe (it came with my scanner).
Next, I find a handle material I like, usually stag and Copy and Paste it onto the drawing. I clean it up the edges with the Eraser Tool.
The blade can be done the same way (Copy and Paste) or sometimes I just paint it in. Same thing for the bolsters and any other parts of the knife.
The secret, if there is one is to do each part of the knife in Layers and SAVE your work often.
When the knife looks about right, but flat I add aditional layers one for highlites and one for shadows. When it looks like it has enough depth, I Merge all the Layers that make up the knife.
Next comes the background, I just try to find something that compliments the knife and isn't too busy. Then just Copy and Paste the knife onto the background. Before I merge the knife with the background I like to add a Dropped Shadow to give it some depth.
That's it.
It's possible to draw knives on the computer without a scanner, I've done it but it's hard. PhotoDeluxe is an inexpensive program and it will take you some time before you outgrow it.
If you're really interested in learning to do the kind of work I do just e-mail I have a tutorial that I did to show Gene74 how to use PhotoDeluxe.
To see my work click on my PhotoPoint site and go to Works In Progress.
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"Will work 4 Knives!"
My PhotoPoint Site
